


chart up your insides and put them on display

by thalassashells



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene, contemplation of death and suicide as typical of the game, repost sorry, rest of the cast in passing, self harm via overwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21753919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thalassashells/pseuds/thalassashells
Summary: A feast at Altessa's house.+A night after crossing the Otherworldly Gate.
Relationships: Sheena Fujibayashi/Zelos Wilder
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	1. carve the details off your disease

**Author's Note:**

> reposting this because i went batshit and deleted it the first time. uhh. come get yall juice

Almost everyone ate. Eventually.

Zelos had gathered everyone around Altessa's table and served the food himself. His demeanor was clumsy and frantic and everything he said had an edge of panic, as though if he stopped talking and gesticulating and smiling he would explode into a thousand pieces. 

It's all quite plain and horrifically awkward. Lloyd took some nudging from Zelos to finally scoop some of the mashed potato into his mouth – one could hardly call it eating, the way he barely chewed and swallowed painfully. Zelos laughs too loudly again and Lloyd, of all people, shoots him a quieting glare. Raine pushed Genis's dish ever closer to him until he got the hint that he had no choice in the matter. Presea and Regal silently empty their plates and depart before anyone can even try to begin conversation with them, even Zelos.

"Good niiight!" He crows after them, waving. Neither of them respond. 

Genis is drowsy before he's even finished his meal and Raine picks him up to rest against her shoulder. She puts a finger over her lips when Zelos opens his mouth to offer them a goodbye. He sheepishly mimics the gesture. 

Sheena eyes him across the table, waiting for him to make a loud noise that wakes Genis, or for a disparaging comment that never comes. 

Lloyd finishes eating and looks as though he'll be sick in minutes. 

"Going to bed already?" Zelos rests his chin in his own hand, "The ever-energetic Lloyd, put to sleep before sundown? Geeze, today really is terrible."

"Good night, Zelos. You too, Sheena." Lloyd sighs and lumbers upstairs with a heavy gait. 

As soon as it is only her who remains in the dining room, his smile weakens, flagging at the corners like a weak sail. 

"Not going to have any?" She asks flatly. 

"And choke on peasant food? No way." He clicks his tongue and leans back, folding his hands behind his head, "It's not like you wanted any either."

Something in Sheena's chest twitches. Something is wrong, and every possibility is sickening. Here she is again, faced with a problem and bound by indecision. Why does every road end here? 

"I'm not hungry." She says.

"Neither am I." He counters quickly, too sharp, too venomous. 

"You look like shit." Sheena leans forward, anger seeping into her tone, "You should eat."

"Yeah?" He scoffs. She's almost relieved to hear him cracking, as it's the only proof she has that she's reaching him at all, "I saw my coffin today. You wouldn't look any better."

She grimaces and can't stop herself from spouting pointless denial: "It doesn't need to be your- "

"They're all the same, too! Did you notice that, Sheena? Every single one." His voice trembles, his body tight with vicious energy, "It's all made up for me in advance. They already know I'm -"

"Stop." She growls and slams her hand on the table. Tears are brimming in her eyes, and he unfolds his arms to match her stance, some kind of wild glee dancing on his face. So feral you could mistake it for rage, for violent vindication. Sheena knows it well, and in some selfish part wishes she didn't, because watching herself in the mirror is already enough.

"At least they might say 'here lies Zelos Wilder, our Beautiful Failure Chosen', right? Maybe I can request a personal touch!"

"Stop! This isn't a joke!" Sheena swipes her hand and knocks the plate he'd made for her off the table. It shatters on the stone floor, shards of it clinking as they scatter across the large room. 

The two of them sit in worried silence for a moment as the sound rings through the house. But nobody comes. 

"Don't get that way with me." He hisses as soon as the air settles, "Not when you'd walk away with Kuchinawa tonight if he just asked."

Sheena searches for words in the mess of her head and can't find a single one. She can't summon that energy, that control, she can only scream like an animal. Her heart feels like it'll be coughed up with the sound, spit onto the table for him to see. Nothing so dramatic happens, nothing is ever as overwhelming as she feels it to be. 

Yet again, the clamor should be enough to wake anyone sleeping, and yet again nobody comes. 

His smile is gone with his rage, replaced with an all consuming exhaustion that pushes on every point of his face. Sheena doesn't want to imagine how she looks—ragged and furious, scared and unsure. Sick. She feels sick. 

"I'm going to bed." He says quietly. 

Sheena reaches out and grabs his arm. She can't stand to see him, she can't stand to watch him slink away in silence, she can't stand to be alone with herself, she can't stand -- 

Honest shock dawns on his face. Honest anger, too.

"If Kuchinawa showed up tonight," She says, struggling to maintain an even tone, "You wouldn't let me leave."

Zelos doesn't respond, but his shoulder tense and he narrows his eyes.

"So I won't let you leave, either." 

He tugs his arm from her grip. She grabs again, only catching the fabric of his glove. 

"...Come lie down with me, then." He shrugs. There's no hint of suggestion in his voice, not like the other times they've curled up with each other on a long night. 

"Be serious." She says softly.

"I'm being serious. If you're so worried, come lie down with me. I won't bite." He flashes a weary semblance of his usual smirk that flickers away quickly.

So she takes his hand in silence and presses her shoulder to his, relieved beyond all measure when he does not push her away. He does not take her any closer, either. They say nothing else as they climb the staircase to his room.

She should take her chance now: put all of those skills to use and wrench the truth out of him no matter the cost, lest it all comes crashing down. Instead, she follows him into his bed. She should listen to the nagging voice telling her to start piecing together clues. Instead, she refuses to stand in accusation, even when all signs are flashing bright and pointing ever downwards.

She lets him hold her, his head tucked tightly against her chest, and she buries her face in his tangled hair.


	2. its a given this is living this is how we react

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ill be honest w/ you im uploading this now so i dont pussy out of posting something for once in my life and im sooo tired.

When he finds her at the arbitrary perimeter of her patrol route, she's beating her fists against a tree on the riverside. There's no technique to it - none of her practiced control and minute shifting of weight that takes her from one stance to another as her usual training goes. There's only reflexive grunting as she works her strong arms to no avail but bloody knuckles.

"What the hell is this?" Zelos says too loudly, and as intended, scares her.

Sheena does not uncurl her fists: "I'm training."

"For what?" 

"Just training."

Her voice is flat and distant. It has been since they crossed the Otherworldly Gate back into Sylvarant - by force. Zelos watches her wrist and wonders if it still hurts where he dragged her. If it does, it's not stopping her from chipping another spray of bark from the tree with that very hand.

"Looks like you're doing Kuchinawa's work for him."

She pauses. A trickle of blood oozes from her knuckle into her closed fist, pooling in the creases. The moon and Zelos's torch give him a sickening view.

"Shut up. You're not taking this from me." She spits. At least her anger hasn't abandoned her. 

"Taking? What else did I take?"

"My plan!"

"So Colette didn't get through that thick skull of yours an inch-" Zelos scowls, his grip on his torch tight enough to make his fingers go white. 

"I heard what she said!" Sheena turns on him and throws her arms out. 

"To not throw your life away!"

"I wasn't throwing it away! I was going to - I was going to fix it!"

"Fix what? His problems? You can't fix him, Sheena. He's sick in the head."

"Maybe I could have given him some - some justice!"

"Okay. Justice." He says, rolling his eyes, "Killing yourself won't bring his parents back."

"It might bring him some peace he hasn't had since I-"

"We need you a lot more than he needs some goddamn catharsis!"

Sheena buries her face in her hands and screams. Zelos waits the long, long moment that it takes for her to finish. When she pulls her hands from her face the blood has smeared onto her cheeks - which he can now see are already red from salt and exhaustion. She looks ready to collapse and never stand up again, barely holding up her own weight just to prove some point about where she's supposed to die.

"Sheena," Zelos says quietly, "Let me patch up those hands, ok?"

Her eyes are frantic when they meet his. He approaches her like he would a cat who might bolt, with measured steps and a hand out in offering. She stares at it like she's never seen it before. Zelos puts a hand on her shoulder and she doesn't shrug him off, so he guides her to the riverside to sit. 

He pins the torch upright against a rock, giving him a good view of Sheena. She watches him without saying anything. Her shoulders and back are hunched defensively, shrinking from the light that reveals her miserable state. The moonlight is a different color here, and casts her black hair in a different shine.

"Hold your hands out?" He asks. She does.

He fishes through the pack on his waist to pull out a little vial of blue liquid that he pours onto the broken skin. Her hands twitch at the cold. 

Only after Zelos starts to channel his mana into the wound does Sheena speak her mind.

"No 'Nurse Wilder' schtick today?" She says without enthusiasm. Without anger behind her voice, it's uneven from the crying.

"He didn't seem welcome," He shrugs, watching as the skin knits itself across her knuckles, "Might have gotten his nose caved in."

"He might have deserved it."

"He usually does."

Sheena laughs weakly at that, trying despite everything to pass it off as a sigh. 

"I…" She starts, and then trails off into nothing while Zelos finishes wrapping bandages around each of her hands. Unsaid words sit heavy between them, and he's scared to know what they might have been. An apology? It wouldn't be the first time she said sorry for being hurt - or not being hurt enough. A retort? That would be easier, but Zelos worried he'd never live to see the day Sheena Fujibayashi made something easy for him or herself. 

"I came to relieve you, you know. Of your patrol. You could go back and sleep." Zelos tells her when a minute passes without her eyes leaving the slowly flowing river.

"The stars are different here. Did you notice?"

"Are you listening, Sheena?"

"Sure. Did you notice, though?"

He looks up. He hadn't noticed until now. He'd been too focused on how different the air smelled. 

"Makes it feel like...none of it ever happened here." She murmurs.

"What's 'it'?" He asks dumbly, like he hasn't thought the same thing a dozen times today. Like he hasn't considered just disappearing into these woods, if she would let him. Or better yet, disappear with him.

"You know." She says, and drops back onto the grass to watch the sky.

He drops down beside her and watches her face as she tries to find a star that knows what she's done. 

"Yeah," He reaches out and wipes a smear of dirt and blood from her cheek, "Yeah, I know."


End file.
